Daedalus256

Hello,

I'm rather new to these forums but I guess I'll save that for the introductions forum. I recently got a Compaq Armada m700 but it seems to have a few problems. Here are the specs first off:

700mhz Pentium 3
192MB RAM (64MB onboard)
12GB IBM Travelstar HDD
ATI Rage Mobility
DVD-ROM Drive

When I first brought it home and plugged it in, it worked perfectly but it had WinME on it so obviously that had to be resolved. The battery also charged. I installed XP on the laptop that day and everything worked great. The battery holds a great charge, I had a Cisco wireless card laying around and was able to use that flawlessly and for only being 700mhz, it ran XP quite well. I set the computer down to go outside for a cigarette and when I came back in the machine seemed to be off and here's where the problems begin.

Tried turning it back on, got the compaq splash screen and then it shut itself off. Tried running it on battery and it wouldn't boot from battery. Checked the battery and it has a full charge (XP reads it as about 94%). So I let it sit overnight thinking it's either RAM or Heat.

The next day I boot it up and it runs for a little while then locks hard in XP and shuts itself off. This is after about 20 minutes of it just sitting there. So I try to start it back up and get the same crap as before. It'll sometimes get through the memory check and get to the intel boot manager screen, then shut off or lock up. Figuring it's heat at this point (I tested this using some RAM from my Powerbook G3 as it used PC100 as well) I tore the ******* apart, took everything off but the blasted CPU heatsink as I didn't have a screwdriver quite that tiny. Blew it out with compressed air. Put everything back together last night while on a caffeine buzz (5 cups of coffee at 3AM = not a good idea btw) Booted it up, got into XP and got the same issues.

So am I better off just trying to find another Motherboard/DC board for this thing? They can be had pretty cheap on ebay and I mean hell, this could be a decent little laptop to just do schoolwork, etc on.

What should I do?

TheMatt

Hi,

It is likely the heat. That is why you didn't see problems right away. If you can boot into Windows, download MobileMeter and post the temps it reads. If you can't, run the laptop with the bottom panel over the CPU off and if you have a small fan, have that blow into the bottom of the laptop. Then, see if you have the same problems.

If it doesn't respond to that, then test each RAM stick separately, and run Memtest86 from my sig for about 6 hours and see if it reports any errors.

Daedalus256

Yeah everyone says it may be the heat and after reading info on the m700s I guess that they do get quite hot. The only thing that makes me think a new motherboard would solve the issue is that the battery does not charge and the computer will not boot off of battery or run off of the battery anymore, despite XP recognizing it.

Daedalus256

Huh, can't seem to edit my previous post.

Anyway I know it's not the memory the memory in the other machine that I tried wasn't giving me problems. I guess I could try to run memtest and see if the 64mb that's onboard is the problem, but if that's the case I'm going to need a new board.

Also, just ran MobileMeter until the machine locked. It idled around 46C or so, sometimes a little lower at 43C sometimes higher at 50C.

EDIT: Laptop just completely shut off at about 50% on the first pass. So it's either the 128 stick in there or the board itself.

TheMatt

Heat is not the problem. Look around on the board for any damaged components, especially any capacitors that are bulged or leaking. I think it is the RAM, though. If you haven't already, try the 128 MB stick in another laptop, and try Memtest86 only on the 64 MB onboard, so remove the 128 MB stick while running the test.

Daedalus256

Yeah I ram memtest with only the onboard memory in the laptop, it locked around 9% passes and the wall time stopped. Although the cursor underneath L1 Cache kept on blinking. I'm pretty sure I need a new board. :-/

TheMatt

I agree. The onboard RAM is the problem.